October 11th marks the Cash Game Festival’s first day in Ireland, also poetically called the Emerald Isle due to Ireland’s green hills. Indeed, we saw the lovely green hills when we flew in to Dublin a day before the festival. It is our first time to do a live event in this area. This time, we are not in stopping in a casino like we normally do. Instead, we are in a poker-only card club called the Village Green Card Club. The place is cozy with 9 poker tables (10 with the addition of our live TV table) and is founded by JP Mc Cann whose aim is to bring quality poker events to Ireland. You can get a quick overview of his impressive work with Irish poker HERE. We are truly blessed to work with JP, and to be able to enrich the Irish poker scene with more cash game action.

Our first full day in Dublin started with breakfast served by Andro Loos, the CGF project manager, right in the Village Green Card Club’s cozy bar area . Andro had gone shopping earlier in the morning and had managed to find some delicious Irish bread, cheese, breakfast cookies, apples etc. for the whole team. No Guinness was served since the long day would still be ahead. However, during our 5 PM welcome drinks, plenty of Guinness was being served instead of the usual sparkling wine. It is a proper fuel for the 5-day poker action in Dublin.

The Drink of the Week

The CGF Wheel of Fortune

In the early afternoon, the guys started setting up a nice wooden old school wheel of fortune at the card club. Why? Because the CGF would not leave you without the chance to win lovely prizes and packages to our next stop in Tallinn on Nov 15-19. How to win? Daily, the players will be given raffle tickets for every hour of cash games they play. Two names will be randomly drawn from 6 PM till 10 PM. The players get to spin the wheel of fortune if their name is drawn. The players also need to be present at the time of the draw to be able to spin the wheel. The prizes range from free drinks to cash prizes up to €250. One can’t really lose because the “worst” that can happen is that a player wins a pint of free Guinness. The special draw, however, will take place on Sunday. Namely, all the lucky names drawn on previous nights, will get a chance to enter the grand finale on Sunday. At least two CGF VIP packages to Tallinn stop (worth €1,650) and some sweet cash prizes will go to the winners. The amount of packages and the size of cash prizes are dependent on the money left after the nightly draws. So, win small during the week and get a chance to win big on Sunday or vice versa.

The Wheel of Fortune

CGF Freeroll on Thursday, Oct. 12

Our lovely partners will get together to host a special CGF freeroll. The freeroll will be open on Betsafe, Betsafe Baltics (Latvia & Estonia only) and Betsson with €1,000 prize pool. The password will be announced during CGF first live stream today. The stream starts at 6 PM UK time on www.twitch.tv/cashgamefestival. So, stay tuned to our live Twitch stream. The time of the tournament is 8 PM UK time (30 min. late registrations).

CGF TV Tables

Wednesday was a special day in the CGF history as Franke, the CGF co-founder, was in the commentary booth for the first time. He was hosting both shows, the earlier €1/€2 hold’em and the later €2/€5 hold’em live stream, and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it. One could say that he is a natural.

The first stream was a little special for other reason as well, as for the second time in CGF history, we had a married couple on the feature table. Namely, in seat #8 was Lisa Renko Roberts, a personal trainer, originally from New York, now living in Georgia, US. The poker-loving Lisa and her husband Scott were just visiting Ireland (her dream) and learned about the Cash Game Festival via Facebook. Immediately, he decided to register for our TV table. One must add, that Lisa is also a big fan of WilliamKassouf who also played our TV table (twice) in London last month. Small world.

The €2/€5 hold’em TV table featured JP Mc Cann him-self. Not being able to play as much poker as he would like to these days, he enjoyed the chance to be able to play some nice hold’em in his own card club.

Again, our TV table trophy (and 2 €400 CGF Tallinn stop hospitality packages) will go to a player with the most big blinds won during the whole TV table sessions in Dublin. On day 1, Ed Furniss from Ireland was the biggest winner with 254.5 big blinds, cashing out the profit of €509. The trophy winner will be announced on Sunday after the last stream. Our first trophy in London went to Norway. Where might Dublin trophy go? Would be nice if it stayed in Ireland this time.

What Else?

It happened so, that we tied the the card club’s record of most simultaneously running cash tables – day 1 peaked with 5 poker tables. 4 tables were still running well after the midnight with the players intending to pull an all-nighter. That’s the spirit.

Today, in the early afternoon of day 2, the players with our hospitality packages will go to play football golf. Gonna be exciting to see what this game is all about.